Hospitals Give Health Law Real-World Test

Accountable-Care Organizations Are Among the Health Act's Main Cost-Cutting Efforts

By

Melinda Beck

Sept. 26, 2013 10:59 p.m. ET

NEW YORK—Dale Johnson is Exhibit A for people who believe that the new federal health-care law has embedded in it the secret to better care for less money.

Suffering from congestive heart failure, coronary-artery disease and diabetes, the 58-year-old former teacher was hospitalized five times last year at Mount Sinai Medical Center here and visited its emergency room 12 times. Cost to Medicare: $43,849.